The Intercultural Center’s annual Tunnel of Oppression in the basement of Prentiss Hall will feature five new skits on Saturday, Feb. 7. The Tunnel includes new skits each year to demonstrate the various forms of oppression. Students can tour the Tunnel, which presents a total of seven to eight skits depicting some types of oppression that have occurred on campus.

“There are a lot of issues we address, [such as] sexism, sexual orientation, body image, and religious oppression. We look beyond [racial] and cultural oppression,” Director of the Intercultural Center Mukulu Mweu said. “We try to make it broad to show how oppression can impact so many different people in so many different ways.”

Colleges nationwide have presented versions of the Tunnel since the University of Western Illinois at Macomb organized the first one in 1993.  

Whitman’s first Tunnel in 2000 included cases of global oppression. In 2004, organizers decided to focus skits on forms of oppression that have occurred at Whitman.  

“When you go into these scenes, you listen to the dialogue with a different mentality and you hear why [the incident] was oppression. You may realize you heard a conversation like that or were part of a conversation like that, so not only does it make people aware of oppression on campus, sometimes it can make them aware that they’ve been hurting people’s feelings without knowing it,” said sophomore Taneeka Hansen, one of several volunteers who will act in the skits.

Victims of oppression can report an incident to Action Against Hate, a group of faculty, staff, and students. If victims permit the use of their incident for the Tunnel, the Intercultural Center converts the anonymous victim’s description of the incident into a skit. Skits are also based on cases reported by cultural affinity clubs.  

A tour guide will take groups of 10-15 students through the Tunnel. A tour of the Tunnel lasts 15-20 minutes.

“We don’t want people in the Tunnel for a very long time because it gets too overwhelming and too depressing. We need to make a clear concise point but still have its effectiveness,” said sophomore and Intercultural Center Intern Esther Weathers.

“Oppression veers its head in a lot of ways and often is very subtle. Unless you are completely present in the moment and really aware of what’s occurring, you easily dismiss it as, ‘oh, that was among my group of friends, and this one person maybe felt offended for a second,'” said Andrès Dankel-Ibanez, Assistant Director of the Intercultural Center. “When you stop and isolate that situation, and you don’t have other things going on, it allows you to focus on it.”